


Spoons

by twofootwriting



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eye Trauma, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Gore, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22739569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twofootwriting/pseuds/twofootwriting
Summary: Waking up from death for the second time wasn't anything magical. It was definitely something Vanitas didn't want, but here he was living in a passive-aggressive lockdown in the Land of Departure. While things were already downhill, they had started to dig down into the dirt. It was only when the boy did something drastic, did they realize how deep the hole was.
Relationships: Vanitas/Ventus (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 88





	1. It started with the visions.

It was wrong, it was all wrong. Vanitas stood in front of the large bathroom mirror, staring into his own eyes and not seeing them. They weren’t his. They weren’t his eyes, they were his master’s. Vanitas didn’t have his own eyes anymore, he had never had his own eyes. All of his eyes were given to him, at least his first pair had a color he could own. He missed the crimson reflection on the inside of his helmet. He missed the times where he had lacked a face that wasn’t his, existing in a body that wasn’t his, and owning a heart that wasn’t his. The raven looked away from the mirror and down onto the sink and counter. The bathroom here was so elegant. Everything these wayfinders owned was so pretentious, everything had to be perfect and clean and here he was to mess up all of that. Ventus was perfect and clean, Aqua was perfect and clean, Terra was perfect and clean, and Vanitas was disgusting. He knew this is what they all thought about them. The only reason he was allowed into the castle was because of Sora and his magic with the element of charisma. How he had managed to convince three people he had made murder attempts on before to take him in and house him was a miracle.   
But it was true.   
They thought he was disgusting, just like his master and the creatures that he created. He had been bottling since the final battles. It was killing him. The unversed pull and ripped at his skin causing bruises that were simply explained as results of training. They hated him, they hated looking into the copied eyes of the man that had ruined all of their lives and served them plates of trauma that would stick with them until their death beds. There was no real denying this. He knew that they hated him, they had to. He didn’t blame them, he hated those eyes too. So he tried to avoid eye contact with any of then the best he could. Training on his own, only leaving his room when told to, and staying out of the way during traveling and visitations. He was almost a model roommate. Yet, it was killing him. Shaky hands reached up and wiped the tears away from those hellish eyes. He wishes he had his own pairs back.   
Vanitas quickly got rid of any evidence that he was in the bathroom and left. Flicking the lights off behind him, leaving the room in the dark. If he had stayed in there for too long someone might have come. He knew this wouldn’t have been true because he was completely alone on this floor of the castle, but the thoughts still tugged on his mind. He didn’t want anyone to see him, to look at him, to speak to him, nothing.  
The lights of the stars were dancing through the windows to only light up pieces of the wall and floor near the glass panes. Vanitas liked his hallway during the night, being made of it himself, the darkness comforted him. The black color swallowed his footsteps, only echoing the sound. Sounds and feelings were real, they were grounding. Anything he could touch and hear was something he could inherit trust. His eyes would lie to him all to often, the sight of his master through the halls, the views of the creatures that haunted him, and the visions of his failure replayed over and over and over again.  
A world where he didn’t have to see a thing, a comfortable world where he was back asleep and only hearing the sounds of the scene that surrounded him. He took a deep breath, realizing that he had been standing in the hallway for longer than he wished. Actual footsteps started to break the thick silence as the owner of the sound made his way to the room of the hall he called his own. It was obvious that the castle once held hundreds as thousands of doors had lined the hallway, each with their own now completely empty room. It was strange to be the only furnished room on the entire floor but it just meant that if he ever needed some kind of extra storage he always had it. It was Terra’s idea to stick him up here and it was understandable for him to do so. Vanitas couldn’t blame the man for wanting to keep the thing that had ruined his life as far away from his family as possible. Terra had never really liked him, possessed or not, Vanitas was just the pain in his side that wouldn’t die.   
Maybe he should just leave. Escape them one day during visitations and just travel through the different worlds. He wouldn’t have to bottle anymore. The raven opened his bedroom door, greeting the room with sullen silence as he stared over his few objects. A dresser, a bed, and a desk. They gave him nothing less and he hadn’t asked for much more. The light of the stars had followed him in there much to his dismay.   
They wouldn’t let him have any curtains, Aqua thought it would be better for him to be able to have the light of the sun and to see the stars at night. While the statement did sound thoughtful of her, it was very unthoughtful all the same. Vanitas didn’t bother to put himself under the covers, the cold chill of the night was so much better than the feeling of the blankets suffocating him. He didn’t plan on moving much in the morning either. It wasn’t like he needed to go down for food. Vanitas started to wonder if they would even notice if he just stopped going down there at all as he drifted off to sleep. They would probably be thankful. 

As morning rose the sun’s light has overpowered the light of the stars and taken over the entire room. Vanitas had stopped dreaming since he had woken up in the possession of the lights. They had made everything so fruitless. So instead of waking up and missing his dreams, he had to wake up and deal with the return of his bottled emotions. While everyone preached about how keeping your troubling feelings to yourself was harmful to your health, none of them would have even stopped to think about how harmful it would be for him. The bruises had gotten bigger this morning, stretching from as far as his calf to his hip. The raven could only believe that there was more on his back, but there was no mirror in his room to check this, thankfully. If his reflection followed him into his old space-  
The bed was warm where he continued to lay, the once hard surface now broken in with his day-in and day-out ability to sit in one spot without having to move. The springs in the center almost squished flat while the areas around them were as if they were never touched. He sat like this for a while, staring out the window at the sky. He counted the clouds as they passed by. Totaling them up as the sun had started to set already. There was exactly twenty-five more clouds today than there was yesterday. He knew they would never have noticed, no one had even come up to his floor today. What if they had left?   
The bright light of the sun was replaced with the dim light of the stars once again. Vanitas was tired of the light. The light of the stars, the light of the sun, the light that shone through the clouds as they passed his window, and the light that carried itself through his eyelids. That was the one he had hated the most, the point of closing his eyes was to return to the darkness and yet the light had yet again found its way into ruining everything for him. He wanted to go down to the training yards.   
The bed creaked in protest craving to keep him there until the walls of the castle decayed around him. Sometimes it was like they did, his mind managing to make him watch the walls chip away and the window fog up with age, everything aging and dying except for him.   
His footsteps were a bit louder in the hallway this time, his shoes hit the hardwood with clunks compared to the light steps of his bare feet. Walking down the stair was harder than walking through his hallway, the closer he got to the lights the easier it was for him to get caught going out this late. What was the point of him staying inside anyway? If they didn’t want him here so bad then why didn’t they just dump him outside somewhere? It would be easier to count the clouds that way. No one came out to question the clunks of boots hitting the marble floor or the bright yellow eyes that seemed to glow in the darkness of the halls. Vanitas opened and closed the door behind him, the night air hitting him hard but being all too welcoming. The keyblade graveyard had always been a hot place, but the nights where he was free were always the coldest. Shivers possessed his body as he walked out into the grass and towards the sections of the training grounds he was never able to touch. Maybe coming out in just a tank top was a bad idea but, he was too far away from his room to just go and get a jacket or two.   
He was never able to summon his keyblade around the wayfinders. They were scared of it, with good reason. There wasn’t a lot his blade could do though. He didn’t have keyblade armor, he didn’t have any sort of keyblade transportation, and he couldn’t tap into a lot of what the lights could. Vanitas had come into the realization that his keyblade was just a sham, some kind of replica that Xehanort had created for him to wield when he needed him to. He would be lying to himself if he said that he wasn’t disappointed by this discovery, he was a fake. He was never really meant to wield the keyblade, he was never meant to wield any kind of weapon at all, he was forced into this physical body and forced to do all these things. Life was better when he was just himself.  
A sharp breeze whipped through his hair, bringing him back to the present. Oh right, he was at the training grounds. Void gear materialized and sat comfortably in his hand. His fingers slipping into the grips on the handle and the weight of the front end of the blade dragging itself down to the ground. Vanitas stood there, staring down at the weapon in his hands. It felt so wrong to be holding now. The weapon that he once held with power was now like some kind of souvenir. He lifted his arm to take a lazy slash at the hoops that stood stagnant. The hoop itself jingled back and forth on its chain, not nearly enough power to make the mechanism fully move around. The blade made a loud thud as it hit the ground. Vanitas could feel that it was disappointed in him, he could almost see the eyes as yellow as his own staring down at him with complete utter anger and disgust. If the master had seen him now in this pathetic state he would have lost a limb or two. The wrinkled tanned skin and the hands as hard as steel bore down upon him. He couldn’t feel them, but he could see them. He saw the motions, the speed, and the colors. He hated it.   
The dark boy was unaware of the eyes that were currently watching him. Thankfully they were not the yellow of his own, but the blue of the lights. Aqua watched him from one of the many hallway windows, it wasn’t surprising that she still couldn’t manage a full night's rest. Ten years' worth of trauma doesn’t exactly disappear within a month or three. She watched as he took six more swings at the hoops before just letting the keyblade drop to the ground. She started to take some pitty in on him. While she had despised the creature that now lived in her home, she also knew that he was completely lost. It was only a matter of time before Vanitas did something dangerous and she could put him down for good this time.   
It’s not like Ventus would miss him or anything like that, they never spoke. Vanitas would never come down from his floor and Ventus would never want to go up. Yet, Ventus would complain at every meal Vanitas missed. She loved every single moment without the creature around. She craved for endless moments where she didn’t have to meet those golden eyes.


	2. The Uncommon Solution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Eye Trauma Chapter

The boy had ended up falling asleep outside. He didn’t remember laying down, but the grass of the ground tickled the back of his neck. Vanitas was quite content to stay there on the grass, staring into the cloudless sky until someone had made their presence know. Terra had cleared his throat as he approached. He must want the spot.  
“You should go back inside, Aqua says you’ve been out all night,”   
Terra was the only one who had the guts to look him in the eyes anymore. Vanitas guessed that this was because they were once his at one point. After looking through this pair, things were a little different. He rolled over and stood up, his legs a little wobbly and aching from the bruises. He was so pathetic, what had happened to the loud and mean boy that once plagued the worlds just by breathing? He’s been reduced to nothing, silently taking orders from lights and letting his body reduced to waste.   
Terra only watched as Vanitas stalked away towards the castle. While the calmness that the boy had now provided small comforts, it was also extremely concerning to him. He had to admit that he was hard on the boy but, he had no real reason to trust him. Hell, none of them had any real reason to trust him. Yet, there was something hiding behind those eyes. Those bright golden eyes that terrorized both Ventus and Aqua. For the sake of his family, Terra kept those eyes in check. Even if it did mean that he was breaking them in the process. But he didn’t know that.   
Vanitas dodge the direction of the kitchen and the living room, yet still managed to run into another Wayfinder. “Vanitas!” Ventus called down the hallway towards the boy who obviously didn’t want to be anywhere near here. The blonde ran down the rest of the hallway with a smile that could compete with Sora’s. “I haven’t seen you down for breakfast or dinner for a while are you okay?” he had asked. Avoiding eye contact. That was normal.   
No. He wasn’t.   
“Yeah,” his voice came out thick and foreign. “I’ve been coming down at other times,”   
It sounded wrong. First his eyes, now his voice. Nothing he owned was actually his and it was horrible. “As long as you’re eating,” the other had responded awkwardly. It was obvious that he wanted to talk more, just as obvious that Vanitas did not. “Well, you should try and come down to have dinner with us tonight,” Ventus looked up at him with the worst puppy dog eyes he had ever seen. It was so strained, he hated looking into his eyes as much as Vanitas hated looking into his. “No promises,” he mumbled back. Ventus took this as his time to escape. “At least try please!” the blonde had called back to him as he left the hallway.   
Stupid. 

It was wrong again. They were all wrong again. Vanitas found himself staring into the eyes of a stranger, again. The bathroom mirror reflecting something it shouldn’t. How many more again’s would he have to see until he wouldn’t have to see it anymore.   
I wouldn’t have to see it anymore.   
Vanitas plugged up the sink and poured out a potion into it.   
The bad eyes started to wander, looking around the bathroom for something they needed. He needed something specific. Something round like a spoon. A spoon would make it all so much easier. It was time to visit the kitchen for once. It was far past dinner and far past for any of the lights to be out and about. Good thing he wasn’t a light. His footsteps remained silent as he took quick steps down the tens of stairs he hand to climb. The kitchen seemed welcoming when he had gotten there, the stove light providing little vision of the area. Vanitas had never actually been inside the room before, so locating the spoons was a bit of a hassle. He sat there, opening up every single drawer until he found the normal tablespoons. This wasn’t the time and wasn’t the place for him to do anything but he found himself thinking about the reactions if he enacted his plan here and now. Vanitas stared into his reflection on the spoon, he was missing scissors, he also needed scissors. Those were even harder to find. All the noise he was making had to alert someone.   
Right?   
Yet, no one came. It was understandable, they probably thought he was just grabbing some food or something like that. The raven took his tools and climbed back up the stairs, missing the second set of footsteps that followed him up. He took a dive into the bathroom. Setting his tools down on the counter before returning to what was once a regular program. Staring blankly into the mirror. The second set of steps passed right by the bathroom, they seemed to have missed where he was going. Instead, the steps made their way to his room first. Aqua had thought that she would find the boy there, silently enjoying anything that he would have stolen from the kitchen. The room was completely empty when she had opened the door. Not a soul or living creature in sight. Then she heard the first scream.   
The spoon was doing its best work, but Vanitas couldn’t stomach the sight enough to clip the thread that heald the first one in place. Heavy breathing filled the small room and small whimpers echoed off the walls. He knew this was going to be a problem, locking the door before even picking the tools back up. The scissors sliced through like they were clipping plant stems. Blood started to pour from the viens it was like watching water pour out of a straw, staining the perfect and clean bathroom making it all just was disgusting and dirty as him. The mirror hurt to look at now, all covered in black and red. Soon enough he wouldn’t even have to look at the mirror, he could face it but never have to see it. He wouldn’t have somebody else’s eyes.   
A harsh knock made itself clear, almost making him dig into the second socket too fast. “Vanitas? open the door!” Aqua yelled. Should he reply, should he just continue? He cried, but only one eye was able to produce the tears, while the other lay drying on the decorative rug. “No!” He screamed, digging the spoon into the other socket. It was harder to clip this one. He couldn’t see where the stem was, and he had lost the scissors for a split second. His hand reached up and touched the wet thread that held his last pain together, snipping it quick. The knocking had turned into a continuous pounding, but nothing was as loud as the sound of his left eyeball hitting the bathroom tiles. She was going to wake up the other two. “Vanitas, open this door right now!”   
The boy leaned over where he believed the sink was and covered the new holes as they bled. He scrambled to find out where the sink actually was as it was filled with a potion for him to stop the bleeding with. He couldn’t tell what kind of liquid was slipping in between his hands, he could only assume it was blood. The warm and thick feeling was so increased. The pounding has stopped, she was pulling out her keyblade. Aqua was going to come in whether he wanted her to or not. Vanitas slapped his hand around on the counter until it dipped down into a splash. He frantically splashed the potion onto his face as he heard the lock on the door click out of place.   
He wasn’t the only one that screamed that night.   
Aqua had seen a lot in the realm of darkness, but there was nothing that could’ve prepared her for the scene she had just born witness to. There stood Vanitas, hunched over the sink, surrounded by blood, a pair of scissors and a spoon on the counter next to him both soaked in blood, and a set of golden eyes.   
A set of once vibrant golden eyes now laying on the bathroom floor.   
Vanitas choked out a sob, refusing to remove his hands from his face. “I’m sorry,” he started to apologize. He didn't even know what he was even apologizing for. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,”   
Perhaps he was apologizing to Aqua for having to see it, maybe he was apologizing to his master for being such a disgrace, or he could be apologizing to himself.   
Aqua fled the room as fast as she possibly could, he could hear her running down the stairs shouting for the other two lights to wake up. He sat in the dark. Well, at least it was dark for him now. It would always be dark for him. No more annoying light, no more counting clouds, no more having to look at the bruises.   
He was free of it all.   
Three pairs of footsteps started running down the hallway. Terra must have made his way to the door first. “Oh my-” the man was interrupted by a gag. Vanitas could only imagine how disgusting the scene might be. His legs started to shake, getting too weak to stand over the sink anymore. The bleeding has already stopped so the sink was useless to him now. Ventus saw it next, he didn’t even get the chance to say anything before he bolted away gagging. Terra must have noticed his shaking legs, carefully stepping into the bathroom and scooping the newly blind boy up. “Come on, let’s get out of here and fix you up,” the man mumbled. Vanitas listened to the new life of his hallway. Ventus was puking somewhere, while Aqua shut the door and continued to cry. Terra carried him down the hall and started on the stairs. A drop of water hit Vanitas’s hand, so Terra was crying too now. “Vanitas,” his voice wavered. “Why would you do that?” his voice cracked as he asked that question. He had managed to break these lights again and it wasn’t even sunrise yet. He opened his mouth to answer, his voice equally as broke and waved. “I didn’t want to see them anymore,” he cried. Terra squeezed the boy closer and he continued his way down the stairs. “They weren’t mine,”   
It was silent from there until they walked into some kind of room. Vanitas only assumed it was medical. Aqua was probably cleaning up Ventus’s mess right now. Someone would have to pick up his eyes off the bathroom floor and scrub the blood off of everything.   
Maybe they could get Yen Sid to send in a few magic brooms to do it.   
Terra set him down onto something soft before starting to rummage through something. He kept his hands clamped tight against his face. “I need to see your face,” Terra reached shaky hands up to touch his. “Why?”   
“I need to see your,” the man paused. What was he supposed to say? He couldn’t say eyes anymore. “I need to put a bandage around it,”   
Vanitas let his hands fall from his face. A part of him believed that when he brought his hands back to his sides he would be able to see the face of the man that was currently placing some kind of cloth over where his eyes once were. Yet there was no change. There was no difference between covering and uncovering them. They were gone. Terra’s breathing was almost as erratic as his own. He could hear the silent sobs the man was trying to hide. There was no doubt in his mind that the elder was blaming himself for the whole thing. It wasn’t his fault. It was his own.   
“It wasn’t your fault,” the raven mumbled. Louder sobs echoed the medical room. The ever so shaking hands finished wrapping the bandages around his empty sockets before they dropped down to hold onto his. Terra’s hands were so rough around the edges, covered in calluses. Two sets of footsteps started to approach. Vanitas was tired, he didn’t want to be here anymore. He wanted to be back up in his hallway. If Aqua hadn’t found him then he would’ve just stumbled down the hallway and gone to bed. The footsteps stopped just at the door. Or at least that’s where he thought the door was.   
Ventus was greeted with the sight of his brother figure kneeling in front of a chair, holding onto Vanitas’s hands, and sobbing. Vanitas only faced forward, silent and unreactive. “I have no words,” Aqua had spoken up.   
“He said he didn’t want to see them anymore,” Terra had repeated his words back to them. “He didn’t want to look through eyes that weren’t his,” his breath getting in the way of the words. Ventus had never seen Terra cry like this before. “Vanitas?” the blonde got closer to him. “They were just problems,” he mumbled, turning away from the direction of the voices. He just wanted to go to bed. That was a long night.


	3. Adjustments

Aqua was on the phone with someone when he woke up. It was easy to pretend that he was sleeping now. “Yeah, he just-”   
She was talking about him.   
“We haven’t cleaned up anything yet, none of us have the guts to even go up there,”   
So he wasn’t in his own room. Whose room was this?   
“What are we going to do?”   
Riku sat back on the other end of the line, way too tired to know how to deal with these things.   
“You guys will just have to take care of him a bit closer now, he won’t really be able to go anywhere or do anything without someone with him,”   
Aqua sighed into the mic.   
“We can all meet up in the morning and talk more, okay? I’ll tell Sora and the others about what happened and we can try and figure out what we are going to do,” Riku filled the silence for her.   
That was the last thing Vanitas would ever want to do. It was bad enough when he just had to sit in a room with all the lights, now he had to sit in a room with all the lights all while unable to see them and to have them talk about him. He moved to try and get up, but apparently, it was more than just Aqua in the room. A hand gently placed itself over his chest and lightly pushed him back down onto the bed that obviously wasn’t his. “Just try and go back to sleep okay?” Ventus’s broken voice had told him. 

They had all fallen asleep in the same room as him. Vanitas could hear them all snore. It was almost charming that they all seemed to snore. Sadly, there was no happiness at the moment as his wakefulness through the night only made him able to feel all the bruises as they formed and worsened.   
At least he didn’t have to see them anymore.   
He tried to sleep again. 

Morning came, this time not through the bright lights that attacked him, but by the movement and sounds of the other kinds of lights. “Vanitas are you awake?” Terra had asked him. The raven considered not answering so he could just sit in silence for a little bit longer but, he wanted to get this day over with. “Yes,”   
“Alright, let’s go get breakfast then,”   
It seemed that it was only Terra in the room with him, Aqua and Ventus had left a while ago. This made him concerned about the time, what if the-  
“The others are already here and helping Aqua cook to lighten the mood,”   
That’s what he was afraid of.   
Hands had suddenly found themselves wrapped around him, lifting him out of the bed and into a set of arms. He wouldn’t mind being carried everywhere for the rest of his days. The boy held onto Terra, burying his face in what he assumed and could confirm was the man’s chest. He didn’t want to be seen. He didn’t want to see and he didn’t want to be seen. A dull ache rang through the spots where his eyes once were, attacking his brain directly. Hunger gnawed at his stomach a way that it hasn’t before. A lot was changing.   
A lot was changing and he didn’t really like it. 

Voices and movement became more and more audible as Terra got closer and closer to the kitchen. At least it smelled good. How was he going to eat? He couldn’t see his food anymore and he would rather starve than have anyone feed him. Things seemed to go silent as Terra stepped in carrying him. What a warm welcome. 

-

The kitchen wears continued to click against the pots and the pans of the stove, but the voices that once lit up the room were now hushed. The boy has had this kind of power before, but instead of fearing him, they were fearing for him. This was stupid. He didn’t do this to be treated like glass. There was nothing that he could really do about it, he couldn’t swing at targets he couldn’t see. “Good morning Terra,” Aqua greeted the man but not him.   
Good, he-  
“Good morning Vanitas,”   
Was he supposed to reply? Did he have to reply? Vanitas remained silent, pressing himself closer to the comfort he had to accept. “I don’t believe he wants to talk right now,”   
Why was Terra being so understanding now, so nice, so caring?   
“That’s alright,” someone else had come into the conversation. It wasn’t a voice he knew, or maybe it was. It wasn’t like he was going to ask anyway so this voice was now going to be known as girl number one. So many different footsteps lingered around the area. Terra placed him down somewhere and he could only assume that it was a chair somewhere at the dining room table. Although he couldn't see them, he could feel the pressure of the lights surrounding him. The boy kept his head down, running his hands across the arms of the chair he was placed in. The wood was smooth but had a few chips here and there. It must be really old. He shifted his weight, feeling the chair move underneath him. There was a cushion on the chair, Vanitas reached down to touch it, it was velvet feeling but extremely warn down. He had to look foolish to the others right now. A deep voice appeared behind him, he was able to recognize it as Riku. “I know what it's like to not be able to see,”   
Last time I checked you had eyes.   
Riku obviously wasn’t talking to him, probably explaining to the others about his strange behavior. Were they all in the room? “Yeah, you had to wear that stupid blindfold,” This time it was Sora talking. He was somewhere on the other side of the table. Was there even a table in front of him? Why were they talking about him like he wasn’t here? Just because he couldn’t see them didn’t mean that he couldn’t hear them. Vanitas reached a hand out in front of him and was greeted by another wooden slab, so he was in front of a table. The wood was almost as smooth as the chair, but he could still feel some kind of food residue left on the table, Ventus really does suck at cleaning. “Guys, he’s right there just talk to him,”   
Oh, speak of the Devil.   
Ventus defended him, which was surprising. Out of all the people in this room, Ventus should be one of the ones who hated him the most. “You’re right, we’re sorry,” Sora apologized his voice not getting any closer. A whisper came from somewhere in the room, it was that girl’s voice again. “What are we supposed to say?”   
That was a good question. Maybe he should answer it.   
“You don’t have to say anything,” Vanitas basically grumbled. The sleepy lump at the back of his throat blocked his words from sounding clear. He hoped he had got the message across through the garbled sounds. The room was silent again. He went back to feeling the surface of the table. 

Food was set out eventually. The smell was nice and warmth came off of the table in front of him. It wasn’t long before Terra was back at his side, acting like an overprotective dad. “What do you want to eat? We have eggs, fruits, bread-” The voice trailed off getting lost in the sounds of the casual table conversations. The fruit sounded nice. “What kind of fruits?” He whispered back to the voice. The man shifted in his chair looking over at the table spread. There were cantaloupe, strawberries, pineapples, honeydew, and a few others all placed in a beautiful design, thanks to Sora, that was being torn apart by all the people at the table. Terra repeated the names of the fruits back to the boy so he could evaluate his options. “Honeydew,”   
The elder moved again, adding to the sounds of the shifting plates and clinking of silver wear. Vanitas heard the plate getting placed back in front of him. Now it was time for the hardest part. “Do you want me to feed you?” The older man asked him. No. Thousand times no.   
“No,”   
He could feel more than one set of eyes on him. Everyone might be having their own conversations, but he could tell that they were all watching him struggle. Waiting for the exact moment where he falters. Wasn’t going to happen.   
Vanitas held out his hand, he was going to have a little bit of dignity in this.   
“Hand me the fork,” he whispered.   
A heavy, cold object slipped into his hands.   
“Guide my hand,”   
Terra seemed to understand, holding onto the boy's wrist carefully. He guided his hand down towards the plate until the fork pressed into something. The vibrations of the piercing traveled up the fork and into his hand. It felt like he was pressing the utensil into a wet blanket. He opened his mouth as he felt his arm grow closer and closer to his face and bit down as the fork touched his tongue. At least he didn't have to see their faces as they all watched him.   
No one wanted to bring up what they were all there for.   
But Lea was great as melting the ice. “So, Vanitas,” his voice was unforgettable, very distinct against the voices of the other lights. “We obviously have quite a bit to talk about,”   
Leas was right but, he didn’t want to, so he said exactly that. “I don’t want to,” he whispered. Where had his voice gone? Terra had become a translator for him and he hated it. “Vanitas, we have to figure out what we are going to do,” the brunette next to him spoke.   
About you. You left out dealing with me. The problem.   
They were surprisingly patient with him. Vanitas expected yelling, sighs, and negativity he could feed off of. There was nothing that he could really do. “Do you want to stay here?” There was that girl’s voice again. She sounded so nice but so quiet, she must have been somewhere further down on the table. Vanitas stayed quiet, did he want to stay here? Where else could he go?   
“You need to stay with someone, I’m sorry to be so blunt but you won’t be able to live much on your own now,”   
“Namine!” a harsh whisper shot its way over to her side of the table. Vanitas liked Namine.  
“You can’t just say that!” Ventus continued to whisper if you could even call it a whisper at this point. “I’m not wrong!” She shot back at full volume. He chuckled at the small banter, she wasn’t. Vanitas heard a gasp from the man next to him, he ignored it. “I don’t know,” he answered his voice clearer than before. They all must’ve thought it strange for him to flip feelings nearly overnight. Aqua stared at him so confused. Just hours ago, this boy was standing in front of a mirror, no longer able to see it. Now he was sitting at the table and talking to her friends like he hadn’t blinded himself.   
There was something still wrong with him and mama Aqua was going to find out now. There was more to Vanitas then she had first believed. She only wished he had noticed sooner, maybe, just maybe, the boy would still be able to see the faces of those around him. It started to tear at her heart. Was this her fault? Was she too hard on him and failed to see how hard he was trying? While her heart tore, her eyes started to let go of tears. She wiped the tears off away from her eyes and puller herself together if she was lucky no one saw that. “Vanitas should stay with us, this was our fault,”   
“No it wasn't” Vanitas spoke up, he needed these lights to stop blaming themselves. This was his fault, he knew it was his fault. He knew it was his fault well, mostly because he was the one that did it to himself. “If this was a training accident then it would’ve been, this is not your fault,”   
Vanitas held onto the fork tight, Terra had let go of his hand a while ago. “If we were there with you if we had just tried a little harder,” she let her voice wavered.  
Vanitas slammed the fork into the table, the prongs sticking themselves into the mahogany while his fist causes collateral damage and breaking the plate in front of him. “Stop.”   
His voice was stern but waved all the same. He was breaking and he was breaking right in front of them all. A warm liquid started to spread across his palm. It wasn’t the juice from the honeydew and he knew that, but what’s the harm in pretending. The boy picked up his hand and opened it flat to show Terra. The man acted fast, pulling him out of the chair and back to the room they were in before. Vanitas could recognize the smell of the room. It was earthy, there was obviously many minerals and herbs there to help with healing. Terra placed him back down, holding out his hand for him to see. “Stay still,”   
The boy listened to him, letting the blood pool in his palm and flow down between his fingers. It was a familiar feeling. “Why did you do that?” the elder asked him as he rummaged through something. He sure seemed to like to ask him why. “Because she’s being dramatic,”   
Vanitas could hear him sigh from across the room. There were the reactions he was looking for. “Vanitas, you scooped out and cut your eyes, if anyone here is being dramatic it’s you,”   
Well, he wasn’t wrong. “Why didn’t you tell us you were having problems sooner?” the voice got closer. A towel touched his palm, almost making him jump. “You guys didn’t like them either,” Vanitas mumbled. “You were the only one who actually looked at me,”   
We fucked up, we fucked up so bad.   
“I’m sorry,” was all the older man had said. “What does that mean?” the boy shot back defensive, yanking his hand away from the hands that were taking care of it. “Vanitas-”   
“Vanitas this, Vanitas that! No, I won’t be quiet about this!” his volume rose.   
“You all keep apologizing! It’s too late for that! Stop pretending like you all suddenly care!”   
The shouting had to be audible to the rest of the guardians. “It took this?! It took this,” The now crying boy gestured to his face. “It took this for you to actually see me!? You can see me!?”   
The tears stung, they had nowhere to go than to pile up inside the socket. It was uncomfortable, everything was uncomfortable. What even was comfort?   
He could hear choked sobs between his heavy breaths. He had even noticed that he was hyperventilating the way he was. “Breath Vanitas, please,” a broken voice had begged him. Arms surrounded him and counted slowly to three and back down to one. He was supposed to follow the numbers with his breathing, but he couldn’t stop the erratic panic. Then it was gone. A shriek came from the same room, obviously not human. The arms left him almost immediately, striking the source of the screams down. There it was. His bottle had cracked.   
Vanitas folded in on himself, screaming. He was a pressure-sensitive bomb, step on the wrong tile and it was over. Terra stared over at the boy in shock, before running over to him. Vanitas lashed out at the touch, shaking and breaking open any progress they had made earlier as well as damaging something in his sockets. “Aqua!” the older man started to yell. “Aqua I need your help in here!”   
“Now!”  
A spell hit him. He could tell a spell had just hit him. Good night.   
Terra stood there his migraine from crying was pounding. The poor frail boy had sleep forcibly cast upon him. He leaned back limp in the chair he was once sitting in. Aqua stood in the doorway, with every single other guardian standing behind her. “We really fucked up Aqua,”   
“Everyone leave, we’re going to replace the bandages,” Aqua closed the door behind her, shutting everyone else out of the medical room.   
“Terra, what happened?” she asked as he started to unwrap the bandages around his head. The raven hair brushed against his hand as he revealed the two empty spots where a set of golden rings should’ve been. The blood had calmed down already, leaving for him to simply clean up the drying liquid and replace the bandage. “We hated him,” he had said, grabbing a wet towel to clean him up. Aqua was facing away from the scene making sure no one tried to open the door, but she could tell that Ventus had his ear pressed against it tightly. “And he hated himself,” he rung out the now dirty towel, folded it to a clean spot and kept working. “Lemme ask you a question, have you seen any unversed around since Vanitas got here?”   
Terra had it all figured out already, he could see right through the boy and it was horrible.   
“N-no?”   
Things were starting to click in her mind, she was smart enough to figure it out. Sadly, she shamed herself for not being smart enough to see it as it happened. “He’s been holding everything inside, he was afraid of us, he’s still afraid of us,”   
A part of her had wanted to say that it was good, that it served him right.   
“He’s just a child Aqua, we keep seeing him as the man that had ruined us, but we forget that that man had ruined him too,” the older man lifted the boys head off the back of the chair to wrap the cloth against it. “He started to see that man and only that man,” his voice started to break again. He was tired of crying but, look at what they did. “He didn’t want to see it anymore,”   
Aqua finally added to the conversation. “It is our faults,”   
“But he doesn’t want us to hate him more,” Terra finished for her.   
Ventus pulled away from the door, looking back at everyone else around him. “What are they saying?” Kairi whispered. “We-”   
How was he supposed to tell them that he just, well, bullied someone into removing their eyeballs? “I can’t hear them,” he lied.


	4. Finding the Problem

When Vanitas came back to he could hear the sounds of light breathing around him. He took a deep breath and started to feel around where he was. “Are you awake?” a voice asked. Ah, good he was already caught. “Yes,” he whispered, his voice leaving him again. He was left in there with Aqua this time. What now. What are they gonna do now? “Did they-”   
“No. they haven’t left yet,” she answered plainly. “They’re all outside in the courtyard,” her voice got closer, and her hand touched his. Her hands were a lot softer than Terra’s surprisingly enough. She knew more about skincare than him apparently. “Would you like to go outside?” she asked him, pulling him upward onto his feet. It was strange. Standing on his own without being able to see himself doing it. “Is Terra out there?”   
Why did he ask that? Why did he want to know? Was he growing attached?   
“Yes, Terra is out there,” He could hear the sadness in her voice. He broke them, didn’t he? Aqua started to pull on his hand, walking with him out of the room and into the rest of the castle. Vanitas could feel the warm sun hit his face as the front door opened to reveal the giant yard and land they had in possession. Usually, he could have to shy away from the light but, the warmth felt so welcoming. He could hear the shouts and laughter of the lights. They must have finished their ‘deal with Vanitas’ meeting while he was in the magically induced coma. “Aqua,” he called out to her, despite knowing she was right there still holding onto his hand. “What’s gonna happen?” he asked, trying to see if he would be able to make out what anyone was saying. “You’re going to stay with us, we are going to take care of you, but if you want to visit any of the other’s we can arrange it,” she answered, a charm to her voice that had never been there before. What happened to the woman who wanted to stomp him out like a roach? “Will I have to move downstairs?”   
Well, he did have to but, he really just wanted to ask. Can I move downstairs?   
“Yes, Terra is convinced that he is going to move you into some of the rooms next to his, or in his,”   
Vanitas moved his head back and forth in the light, feeling the sun on different parts of his face, having the sounds of the world around him shift as he did. He could hear footsteps coming up the stairs towards them, he hadn’t heard this voice before. “Good evening Aqua,” the voice had greeted her. It was deep and he could almost put a face to it but, it was still lost somewhere in his memories. “I and Lea will have to be taking our leave soon, Roxas, Xion, and Namine have a scheduled meet up with their other friends back in Twilight Town,”   
So the voice belonged to one of the goons that lived in Twilight Town. Vanitas knew Lea’s voice and he knew Roxas’s voice, so through a process of elimination, he could only guess it was that blue-haired man that hung around with them. “That’s alright! You guys have some fun!” she replied with a cheery voice. “Now we just have to manage to make them actually leave,” The voice trailed off. He could almost hear the sounds of the mentioned gang yelling and fake crying as Lea had to pry Roxas and Xion off of Sora.   
This was boring. 

The last of the day was like some kind of flash, Vanitas didn’t believe that he was back at the dining room table. This time instead of being surrounded by people it was just him, Terra, Aqua, and Ventus. The blonde had to be happy about this one, Vanitas was at the table for once in his life. Terra sat with Aqua this time, leaving him to be helped by the boy. The sound of a plate interrupted his eavesdropping on the other pair’s conversation. It smelled nice, he had no idea what the smells were made out of but it was a nice combination. The raven held out his hand, wanting to do the same thing he had done for breakfast that morning. A cold and heavy object found its way into his hands, Vanitas couldn’t tell what kind of utensil it was, nor did he really care. Ventus’s hands were also very soft. Not quite as upkeep as Aqua’s but it was obvious that he had used lotion once or twice before. They had taken over for him and guided his own down to the plate and up to his face. He could tell that Ventus was eating his own dinner with his other hand. It was obvious to him without having to see it that they had put way too much on the plate for him to handle. So, when the hand had been guided back to the plate, he dropped the silverware down onto the plate then held his hand into a fist. “Done?” Ventus asked, being closer to him than he had initially thought. It was obvious that he was a little disappointed that he was already done. The boy only nodded, leading the blonde to hum. Maybe he understood. “Turn towards my voice,”   
What? Why?   
Vanitas followed directions, scrunching up his eyebrows in confusion but it wasn’t like anyone could see them anyway. Then a cloth started to touch his face. It scared him at first making him flinch away but Ventus had only moved the napkin closer. Maybe he didn’t suck at cleaning. Aqua and Terra watched on, Terra was satisfied with the care while Aqua was still being eaten away by the thoughts of this morning. “Ventus,” the older man called towards the boy. Why did it sound like he was so far away?   
“Could you help Vanitas to his new room, it’s the one next to mine, I have to speak with Aqua for a bit,” he explained. “Okay,”   
Almost a split second later the chair he was sitting in was being pulled out and he was being pulled to his feet. “Let’s go put away these dishes first,” Ventus let go of his hands and he was lost in the space of the dining room. The lost feeling was short-lived as a hand had returned to his. The clinking of plates came from the other side of Ventus. They walked into the kitchen together, Ventus pulling Vanitas towards the sink so he could rinse off the dishes. While the blonde was working on placing the dishes in the drying rack, Vanitas reached his hand out to find the running water that he could hear. Feeling the water against his skin was nearly completely different than how it felt when he had been able to see it. It was obvious Ventus had caught him in the act. “Having fun?” he teased. The raven didn’t respond, just pulled his hand away and wiped the water off on the same sweatpants he was wearing the night before. The two boys left the kitchen, Ventus grabbing hold of the dry hand and pulling him towards the second-floor bedrooms. “Terra had already started on the plan of adding a railing to the stairs so you can make it up and down them on your own,” the boy said. Vanitas was only half listening to what he was saying, listening in more on the echo of the footsteps on the stairs. He had never really appreciated the sounds of the giant connecting staircases. When they reached his room, Vanitas had no reason to believe it wasn’t anything more than the room he had before. Then Ventus had grabbed both of his hands, bringing them up to touch the back of the door behind them first. “What are you doing?” he asked the blonde. “I was thinking since you can’t see you’ll have to feel your way around places right?”   
Where was he going with this?   
“So start here and I’m going to help you find your way around the room,”   
Oh, how evil.   
Ventus’s hands let go of his and he stepped away somewhere farther in the room. He was left alone in space again. It didn’t bother him at first, knowing that the worst thing that could happen to him was that he could fall. His hands swept around the door, it had a lot of intricate designs on it. Why did Ventus close the door? Next was the door frame and the wall. The wall was smooth and had no obvious grooves in it. Why was he making him do this? His hands ran into the first object, it was a smooth wooden surface like the large table, but this was higher. Vanitas took a stab in the dark and tried to guess what it was. “Is this a dresser?” He asked the blonde who was somewhere in the room. “Yes,” came the voice. Vanitas ran his hands over the top of the dresser, it was bare. His hands moved down to the drawers, The knobs were simple and smooth. “There aren’t any clothes in the drawers yet, we are going to go get you some new clothes soon,” the voice said again. “You better not buy me anything that makes me look stupid,” he mumbled. Ventus laughed somewhere in the room. Vanitas followed the dresser all the way to the corner of the room. “This room is small,”   
“No, the dresser is very long,”   
The corner had some wall to it before his hip hit something. “Nightstand?”   
“Yes,”   
It was also bare on the top. No drawer. Vanitas stuck out his leg and hit the frame of the bed with his shin. Sure it stung at first because that was probably one of the worst bruises he had, but he found the bed. The boy moved closer to the bed so bother his knees were touching a part of the bed. Then he flopped down onto the bed, it was surprisingly large. “Alright, found all the important things,” he said into the bed. Ventus laughed, sitting down on the opposite side of the bed. So that’s where he was. They sat together in silence for a while, until the blonde broke it. “Do you want me to stay with you tonight, or do you wanna be alone?”   
That was a good question. Did he want to be alone? He would probably get lost in the room. “You can stay here,” he mumbled.   
Hands had found their way towards his head, playing with the hair that wasn't being squished flat by the bandages around his face. Vanitas could tell that Ventus had some questions. Questions about why what, and how. He didn't any of them though and he was thankful for that. The bed beneath him was worn, not as worn as the bed upstairs in his old room, but worn enough to not be stiff when he laid on it. It was nice. I was comfortable. He didn't remember falling asleep.


	5. First Steps

Vanitas woke up on his side, for a split second he was confused why he couldn't open his eyes but that sweet bliss was short-lived. An extra set of hands were on his, they were soft but not soft enough, smaller than Terra, and bigger than Aqua. Ventus lay next to him asleep, still asleep he could guess from the snoring. When was the boy ever not sleeping? Vanitas slipped his hands out of the other boys, deciding not to think about it for too long. He tried to get up from the bed, his feet touched the floor and he stood up only to clip his thigh on the nightstand. That time he could hold back the hiss of pain from smacking another bruise. "V-vanitas?"   
Oh, he could sleep through him getting out of the bed but not a simple sound?   
"What?" He asked, slightly ashamed of the malice in his voice.   
Remember when sounding like that was normal?   
"Here let me help you," the blonde mumbled. Shifting came from the other side of the bed and footsteps made their way around and next to him. Hands grabbed onto his again. It was starting to feel more restraining than helping. "Do you wanna take a morning shower?" The voice was a bit more cheery this time. Showers, right. "I'll let you do it on your own, I just want to help you to our bathrooms,"   
A knock interrupted them.   
"Are you two awake?" A deep voice asked before it opened the door. Terra walked into the room and up to them, there was no doubt a smile on his face. "Good morning you two, I'm going to take Vanitas and get him cleaned up,"  
Why did he feel relief when Terra took over? Why was he so embarrassed by Ventus's care?   
"That's what I was gonna do!" the blonde laughed, moving away from him. The soft hands were replaced by the grounding rough ones once again. Vanitas could hear the lighter footsteps leave the room. “I’m gonna go help with breakfast then!” his voice called from the hallway. “How did you sleep?’ the man asked him as the hands pulled him out of the room and towards the other end of the hallway. “Okay,”   
“Ventus told me that you found the bed and fell asleep almost immediately,” the older man chuckled. Vanitas didn’t respond. Did he really? It doesn’t matter now. The pair stopped and Terra opened a door, the very distinct smell of lavender hit him. This had to be the bathroom, it smelled nothing like the bathroom he had upstairs. His bathroom smelled like mold and wet carpet. It probably smelled worse now, he wondered if anyone had gone up there to clean it up. If they did it probably smelled more like bleach now. Terra must be the one who cleans this bathroom, Vanitas heard him take a deep breath appreciating the smell. “Do you like the smell? It’s my favorite wax melt,”   
Bingo.   
“I’m going to show you around the bathroom before I leave you be to do what you want,” the older man said. The boy was surprised they even considered leaving him alone for longer than a minute or two after the stunt he pulled. The rough hands let go of him.   
Is this going to be like-  
“If you stick your hand out to your left there's a sink,” the older man said behind him. Terra continued to guild him around the bathroom, actually giving him numbers and sides to go off of. Soon enough he was on the other side of the room near the tub while Terra stood in the doorway. He had gotten all the way over there by himself. Vanitas considered it quite the achievement. “Alright, I’m going to close the door and go get you some fresh clothes to change into, on the back of your head is a strip of medical tape holding your bandages together take it off carefully before you get in and avoid taking the water stream straight to the face,”   
“Okay, thank you,” the words slipped out before Vanitas had the time to catch them. He could almost see the dumb smile on the brunet's face. Good thing he didn’t have to and could revel in his blind embarrassment. The door closed with a click and he got to work with figuring out how to turn on the faucet. Terra had told him where it all was and told him that the left was hot and the right was cold. Vanitas stood outside the tub, reaching around until he drew the shower curtain closer to him. He found the first knob, cold, then his hand ran across a smaller middle knob, turns the water from the spout to the shower, then found the final knob, hot. He turned the left knob three times, turned the middle one once, and then the right one twice. The water came shooting out of the showerhead and hit the bathtub floor. Another small victory. Vanitas stepped back from the tub until his lower back hit the counter of the sink. Alright.   
The boy brought his hand up and touched the top of his head, lowering his hand down until he felt the obvious difference in texture. He pulled the tape off and started to unravel the cloth that surrounded his mistake. He placed the bandages on the sink counter. Next was his clothes, those were easy he would get dressed in the dark plenty of times. The plain hoodie, tank top, and sweatpants found themselves piled up next to the old bandages.   
The raven felt so exposed, it was terrifying. The feelings starting to stockpile, the bottle might have cracked earlier but he got a bigger jar this time. Vanitas drew back the curtain and stepped in.   
Terra knocked on the door, interrupting a long time forgotten dissociation. “I got you some clothes, I’m going to come in a put them on the counter,” he warmed before opening the door. The steam left the room within a couple of seconds. “Come out when you’re ready we have unlimited hot water but don’t stay in too long or breakfast will get cold,”   
The door closed again and Vanitas followed the same strategy he had earlier. The towels were easy to find, but putting them back was a struggle. With his clothes it was the opposite, they were hard to find but easy to put on. He could tell that the clothes once belonged to Terra. As long as the pants had drawstrings for him to use it didn’t really matter to him. The boy could only assume that Terra was waiting for him on the other side of the door. The small freedom he got was fun while it lasted. He made it to the door and opened it expecting a voice or hands to find themselves on his. Only to be greeted with silence. He couldn’t even hear the kitchen from here. Something more was poured into the jar. Vanitas had two choices, he could call out for someone and wait or be silent and find his own way around. Pride wasn’t going to let him use the first option so the second one it was. The boy was going to be smart about this, starting with the door frame and finding his way against the wall, he’d be caught eventually but that didn’t much matter now. The wallpaper obviously was laid, indents and chips from the wall underneath might not show through if you saw it but the bumps were definitely there. The smell of lavender got farther and farther away as the boy ran his hand against the wall and walked down the hallway. His hand glided over six other doors before he reached an open-ended corner. Vanitas tried his best to remember how he had gotten up here last night, but that zone out in the shower had made him forget how he even got to the shower in the first place. The raven moved his hand around the corner to feeling around, he might’ve reached the stairs. He took slow and careful steps forward, tapping his foot against the ground in front of him before taking a step. This method seemed to work really well. Then there was a dip in the floor. Yureka! He had found the stairs. A smile escaped when he thought about Terra being proud of him making it down there, but it was replaced by a comic and fake frown. They didn’t like him he wasn’t supposed to be seeking out their praises he was just a thorn in their side.   
Then footsteps started to come from the other side of the stairs. “Hello?” he called out. “Vanitas?” Terra’s voice answered. “I was just about to go get you! It’s very dangerous to walk the stairs without help!” the voice got closer and closer, making the smile that he was trying to hide grow and grow. “I made it all the way here by myself,” he said matter of factly. Terra was silent for a second, Vanitas panicked at this but-  
He just wasn’t able to see the melted heart and smile the older man had. “You did, and I’m proud,”   
Those words hit differently. It was nothing the boy had ever really heard before. His thoughts were shoved aside as the scaly hands grabbed onto his. “Let’s go get breakfast,”


	6. Disscussions

The day played out very normally. Terra replaced his bandages, they had breakfast, the other three went out to train while Vanitas sat somewhere close in the sun. While he was there he wondered if he would ever be able to wield his scam of a keyblade ever again. He wondered if he would even be able to summon it in his state. Well, he wasn’t going to test that now. He picked at the grass under him and thought about the method he used to get around upstairs. Maybe he could get a cane and do the same thing with it. Being blind was hard.   
When training was done the group went back inside, Ventus guiding him this time as he teased the blonde about having sweaty hands. They brought him somewhere new this time, bringing him into a room that smelled like burnt wood and pine trees. He quite liked this room. Ventus said it was the living room, the burnt smell was a fireplace then. They placed him down on a chair, but huge. Ventus called it a couch, but Vanitas was content on calling it a long chair. The cushion on this couch was velvet, much like the chairs in the dining room. But instead of having an interruption of wood somewhere on it the velvet just continued from one end of the couch to the other. He hated it. How they could sit on it was a mystery to him. The second they had all left the room to freshen up, he got out of the stupid couch as fast as possible. The boy would rather sit on the floor or be hyper-aware of the texture rubbing against his clothes. The carpet wasn’t very shabby and was rough against his feet. “Still better than the couch,” he said to no one in particular.   
“What’s better than the couch?” A high pitched voice came from behind him. The raven jumped, spilling too much into the jar. “Whose there?” He asked turning around to face the sound. “Can you see?” the voice asked. It sounded like it was coming from the ground. “You didn’t answer my question,” he shot back. “I’m Chirithy!” The voice had said. A soft and small limb touched his leg. What even was the thing he was talking to?   
“Now you answer my question!” the high pitched voice rang. “No, I can’t,”   
“That’s horrible, do you need any help?” the voice sounded so sad. “I’m trying to find a better place to sit than the stupid long chair,” he mumbled tapping his foot around. “Long chair?”   
“The stupid couch,” he said in a sarcastic voice. Chirithy laughed, was his suffering that funny? “The fabric on it is stupid, it doesn’t deserve to be called its name,” The boy defended himself.   
Something tugged at his pant leg. “The actual chairs are this way,”   
Vanitas followed in the direction of the small tugs, eventually hitting something that he assumed to be the chair. He reached down to touch it, only to find out that it was just a smaller version of the hell couch. “These are made of the same thing!” he said disgustedly. The voice laughed again. “There isn’t anywhere else to sit,” it explained. “I can sit on the floor,”   
Vanitas walked two steps away from the chair and sat down on the floor. He reached his hand out flat for Chirithy to find. “Where are you?” he asked. A small, soft furry hand placed themself in his. “Oh!” he was surprised by this discovery. “What are you?” he asked. That might’ve been a little rude sounding, but beating around the bush wasn’t in his nature. “I’m a dream eater,” The creature explained, pushing their way into his lap. The boy reached up and started to pet the dream eater. “What does that mean?” he asked. He had never heard of a dream eater before, but this one could talk and was nice so he could assume that they weren’t anything that bad. “Hmmm, that's a good question,” Chirithy thought for a second, how were they supposed to answer that. “I help people like you by eating all the bad dreams you have!”   
Sounds legit.   
“There are also bad dream eaters though, who eat all your good dreams,”   
Why hadn’t Vanitas heard of these creatures before?   
“How did you get here?” he sure was asking a lot of questions today.   
The two talked for a while, Chirithy trying to answer any questions Vanitas had the best they could while he sat there and stroked their head. The trio had come back into the room to discover the two. “Chirity!” Ventus called out to them. “Ventus!” they called back, hopping out of Vanitas’s hands and towards him somewhere in the room. The boy was lost in space again. Footsteps started to get closer to him, they were light but they were there. “How have you been Vanitas?” Aqua asked him. She touched his shoulder, kneeling down next to him. “ ‘m okay,” he mumbled his response, not sure how to talk to her yet.   
“I was thinking that you and I could go clothes shopping before dinner? We can go down and get you your own casual clothes and then we can go visit the three good fairies for something more suitable when we go out traveling,”   
As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he quite liked that idea. “Okay,”   
He couldn’t see the smile that spread across her face, but the other two boys in the room did.   
Something felt wrong, Vanitas couldn’t figure out what it quite was, but something was wrong. It had only added more to the jar. He was going to have to start packing it down soon enough. He feels as if he was seen doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing, or as if someone had seen something they weren’t supposed to. The boy was brought up to his room to grab his boots before him and Aqua loaded into the personal gummi ship to travel to a few world’s shops. It was silent at first as she drove, but it was broken all too fast by the last thing he had ever wanted to hear. “When were you going to tell us about the bruises?”   
The jar had reached the brim.   
“I d-don’t know what you’re talking about,” the boy sputtered out. He could tell Aqua had rolled her eyes at that, she could just tell. “Terra saw them this morning, it worried him how bad they looked. Where are they coming from?”   
So it was a transparent shower curtain, huh?   
Vanitas took a deep breath, trying to control the jar that begged to be broken.   
“T-they-”   
He didn’t want to talk about this.   
“It’s the-”   
He really didn’t want to talk about this.   
“They’re from the unversed aren’t they?”   
Bingo. She got it.   
“Yes,” he said plainly. Yes or no questions were so much easier.   
“It’s what happens when you hold them in?” she continued to press on the matter. Vanitas could feel his hands squeezing tight and pressing down onto his legs. The pain sort of grounded him from the panic of her knowing his secret.   
“Yes,”   
“Why are you holding them in?”   
That wasn’t a yes or no question. That’s cheating.   
“I-” the boy stopped again. Everything was spinning. He didn’t even have eyes but he was having vertigo.   
“Does it hurt when they are destroyed?”   
Aqua seemed to like asking a bunch of questions. He hated it.   
“Yes,”   
She simply hummed. They must be getting close to the first world.   
“Is that why you hold them in? Because you don’t want them to be destroyed?”   
“Yes,”   
Why was that word so much easier to say than literally any other word.   
“We’ll figure out a way you don’t have to hold them in any more,”   
Aqua glanced over at the boy that was digging his nails into the poor black sweatpants Terra had put him in. Going off the older man’s description, there was a wall of bruises dipping from the boy’s ankle to his lower back. While many had already turned a faded green or yellow, tens of others were pure black or freshly purple with rings of red or yellow surrounding them. It was horrible to even think about, let alone imagine seeing it.   
Shopping at the first store was simple, they only had a few things that Vanitas really liked. The textures were simple and Aqua did her best to explain what they looked like and the colors that were on them. Vanitas couldn’t let go of a stack of hoodies with a perfectly soft texture on the inside, so quite an amount of munny was spent. When the pair loaded both the shopping bags and themselves back into the gummi ship the silent and stale air was back. “Do you really want to go check out any other stores or do you want to go to the fairies and go home?” She asked him.   
Vanitas found his voice once again, being able to say more than just yes. “I just want to go to the fairies,”   
“Alright!”   
The cockpit returned to silence as they drove, the raven actually quite enjoyed it. He could listen to the sound of the ship’s engine and hear the shopping bags shift in the back. The vibrations of the ship felt strange against his fingertips, yet his hands traveled back and forth on the arm of the chair and the window next to him. Everything was so smooth in the gummi ship.   
The ship came to a stop somewhere and Aqua guided him out. “Good evening ladies,” she greeted a group, Vanitas could only assume it was the three good fairies. “Good evening Aqua,” one of them had said. Her voice was very posh, but she sounded kind. “Who is this with you?” another posh voice asked, her tone was a little less kind. “This is Vanitas, we came to ask you to make him a new outfit for when we go traveling,” Aqua explained. “He looks so much like Sora,” a third voice exclaimed. Aqua chuckled at that. Vanitas wasn’t laughing. He hated being someone else. “Yes, but he is in fact linked to Ventus,”   
linked to? Not part of, not come from, not is a piece of.   
linked to.   
That cheered him up a bit. He wasn’t just a part of Ventus. He was someone who had a connection with the stupid blonde.   
“Oh we know just what to give him!” the voices seemed to say in unison.   
Another spell had been cast upon him. This time it wasn’t all too bad, but he could feel the clothes changing on his boy. The couldn’t see them, but they seemed to fit right and that's all that really mattered. What Aqua got to see was almost an exact copy of Ventus’s traveling clothes. As a base top was a short-sleeved black hoodie was red laced sleeves, on top of that was a short sleeve jacket, just like Ven’s, but the colors were inverted. On the bottom were the exact same style pants but the colors were a little darker. As for shoes, they were the same with the colors of his old boots. It fit him well. “It’s perfect ladies!” Aqua praised.   
“Why he looks quite dashing in them,” one of the voices said.   
Vanitas could feel a blush on his face from the praises, but he chose to ignore it.   
“Alright, we should get going, don’t want to miss dinner, Thank you!”   
They loaded back in the gummi ship and left for home.  
“Thank you, Aqua,”  
When they got back, Vanitas had the chance to show off his new outfit before having to change back into more comfortable clothes for dinner and bed. He took the chance to wear one of the perfectly soft hoodies he had made Aqua buy. When he and Ventus had sat down at the dinner table, the boy flipped part of the sleeve inside out and made the blonde touch it.   
Ventus again guided him back to the room and refused to leave. Vanitas was getting more and more comfortable hanging around the wayfinders. A large part of him despised it, but the small part of him that craved this attention was stronger than it. “I was thinking about something today,” he said to the blonde that was somewhere in the room. Vanitas sat in the center of the bed, listening to figure out where he was. “Do tell,” the voice said from his left. “When I was walking on my own from the bathroom to the stairs I was tapping my foot against the ground to feel what was there,” he explained, patting his hand against his knee as an example. “And I was thinking that I could get some kind of cane that helps me with that,” he finished throwing his hands up like it would manage to explain something more. “I know what you’re talking about!” the blonde said getting closer. “They’re called white canes or something like that!” he sounded all too excited. “I’m sure I could ring up Cid and have him make you a collapsible one,”   
“Collapsible?”   
“It means that you can make it go from small to large and then back again so it's easier to carry around,” he explained.   
“Sounds cool,”


	7. Quiet Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We've reached the end of this journey. Might do simple one shots that will take place in this universe, but I will only be posting these in my compilation I have left long forgotten, Of Redemptions and Drabbles.  
> Thank you all for reading!

Vanitas again didn’t remember falling asleep, but he woke up again with Ventus’s hands in his. Was this going to become a regular thing? Didn't he have his own room?  
It was obvious that the blonde was still sleeping, his snoring a bit louder than usual. The raven almost laughed at the thought of Castle Oblivion being dead silent aside from the sounds of the snoring heart hiding inside of it. His hands escaped again, but he took this as his chance to see the boy again. He let his hands trace up the boy's arms, to his shoulders, then up to his neck and to his face. The snoring stopped almost immediately, his laugh threshold was starting to crack. "Whatcha doing?" a groggy voice asked him. Well, he could tell him what he was actually doing or just tell him what he was telling himself. "Forgot what you looked like," he answered plainly. "Already!? It's only been like 3 days!?"  
Vanitas chuckled, he was getting too comfortable with these wayfinders. Ventus didn’t stop him, letting his hands wander around his face. His cheeks were very smooth, soft and squishable with some very hidden cheekbones. His nose didn’t end with a slight point as he had first thought, it was more of a ball. His thumbs wandered up to the boy's eyebrows, they were thicker than he remembered. His fingers wrapped around his chin and law line. That was where the natural smoothness stopped, it was patchy and felt more like plastic. “Huh?”  
Ventus’s hands reached up to wrap themselves around his wrists. “When Xehanort froze me-”  
His voice was sad. Vanitas didn’t like it.  
“It’s a freeze burn,” he said bluntly. The blonde didn’t need to finish the story. “Yes,”  
His hands went as far as he could reach, the burn traveled down from right under the boy’s jawline up the back of his neck. Just by touching the back of Ventus’s head he could almost feel the hand that was once on the back of the neck. Vanitas could feel everything coming off of the boy, only adding to his own jar. He needed to lighten it up or his jar is going to overflow with emotions that weren’t even him. “Well, I bet it looks better than it feels, feels like earthworms,”  
Was that too mean? It sounded mean. Was he being mean?  
Then a laugh rang out and he could feel the vibrations coming from the neck he was resting his hands around. Ventus trusted him too much already. He gasped at the feeling, the laugh ringing not only through his ears but through his fingertips. Said fingers crawled their way around towards the front and over the boy’s throat. “Do that again,” he demanded.  
“What? Laugh?”  
The shaking hit his fingers again.  
“That!” he got excited by the feeling.  
“The vibrations? From my voice?”  
Ventus laughed again at how giddy the other got at the feeling. The moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. “Ventus? Don’t you have your own room?” 

Then the day repeated. Terra leading him to the bathroom and giving him fresh clothes, going downstairs for breakfast, sitting out in the sun for a bit, and going back inside.  
Dinner was simple, everyone but him were too tired to actually cook anything today so it was anything anyone could get their hands on. Ventus had cereal, while he helped Vanitas with some fruit he picked out. “You really like fruit huh?”  
It’s easier to eat.  
“It’s really sweet,”  
It wasn’t exactly an answer to the question but it was good enough. “We have a bunch of other sweet things and I know a few cool places to go get sweet things! Maybe we can go get some tomorrow,”  
That sounded nice, it excited him even. But he wasn’t going to say that.  
“Okay,”  
Vanitas was left alone in his room this night. Terra had chased Ventus out from the room before bed and shut the door behind him. Despite being in the room for a couple of days, he could still only find the dresser and the bed, he had no idea what was on the right side of the room. He felt so alone again, it was like he was back up on the top floor. His bed was falling apart again, but this time he could feel it. It had to be true then right?  
The boy started to panic, why was the bed moving? Why were the blankets he was hiding under starting to disintegrate in his very hands? Something was wrong. It couldn't be real, right? Vanitas started to scramble to get off the bed as fast as he could, falling onto the floor in the process. It wasn’t fun, nothing was fun. There were no sounds, only the feeling of the world around him falling apart. Something ripped away at the bandages around his face, tearing them clean off but tearing other parts of him in the process. The room was light, surprisingly light for what was happening inside of it. Every single object was melting, cumbling, and corroding. Their destruction looped over and over and over again. The floor turned from wood to dirt to back to wood underneath him. The carpet on the floor molding tearing into pieces in front of him. The bed falling apart piece by piece, the wooden frame cracking and falling apart, the bed springs popping out of the rotting mattress. The dresser changing to become sun bleached colors before the drawers started to fall out of the bottom. The bright lights started to hurt, the colors and lights of the objects were extreme and extremely difficult to describe. They were all overly saturated and dripping. The colors were infecting his vision.  
Vision?  
Just as it was there it was gone. He wasn’t in the dirt, the colors were gone, the shaking and breaking room was gone, and his temporary sight was wrong. Hands were on him faster then he liked them too, reflexively swinging towards them. Landing a punch somewhere and getting the hands away from him. He needed everything away from him. Vanitas was hyper-aware of everything that touched him. The blankets, the matress, the clothes he was wearing, it had all become too much to handle. A voice was trying to get to him, but he couldn’t make out a single word that was being said. More voices started to join, overlapping each other, interrupting each other, and screaming. Large arms wrapped around his and words started to sound more and more familiar. “Vanitas!”  
It was his name.  
Hands touched his face, hands that were soft but not soft enough to be smooth. The raven recognized it as Ventus. The head the rested on top of his was speaking, the voice deep and rumbling. The vibrations of the voice hit the back of his head, the words they were saying started to get clearer and clearer as he started to come to. “It’s okay Van, it’s okay,”  
Van? A nickname? He got his own nickname?  
His sockets started to sting again, the boy could only assume that he was now crying.  
“Vanitas, it was just a nightmare,” a lighter voice had joined. Aqua, Terra, and Ventus had all found themselves into his room. Ventus had made it there first and called for the others to help him. He must’ve been the thing he had punched. It was the first time he had dreamed since his second wake. The very first time he had ever had a dream and it was a nightmare. He didn’t want the dreams. 

The rest of that day was silent. Vanitas refused to talk about anything that had happened. They had completely reverted themselves back three days before, but the boy wasn’t lashing out at them or avoiding them at all costs. Three steps forward, two steps back.  
Ventus refused to leave his side. The boy sat with him the entire day, skipping training, bringing him to and from meals, sitting outside the bathroom, and refusing to leave his room come bed time. It had taken the blonde too long to realize how much Vanitas had needed him here. How much he needed the lost pieces of him. The raven fell asleep in his arms that night, Chirity sitting nearby, still fussing over how sorry they were for not getting the nightmare before it had happened.  
The rest of the week went like that. Slices of silence interrupted by a few conversations by the various people that lived around him. It was that following Wednesday when they had all taken another step forward. The white cane that Sid had been working on was finished. Ventus had explained to the man exactly what was happened, so he added a bunch more features that would aid the boy when he was on his own. The older man had met up with Chip and Dale to add something special to the device. While the cane wasn’t the best in terms of portability, just below the base was three different buttons each one use to auto-dial each of the wayfinder’s gummi phones with a small speaker next to it for them to speak through, a small watch that had bumps on every side (it would be easy to teach him to read), and a larger button to extend and retract the end of the cane. When they had gotten the cane, there was something special in the package it came with. A pair of pitch black glasses to cover up his sockets when they healed. Ventus handed the glasses for him to touch before he was given the cane. The lenses were rounded and the sides were covered, they would completely cover his sockets and protect them from anything that would feel the need to harm him. They did so much for him. He still wasn’t used to the nickname

Another week went by, Vanitas could now walk around the castle by himself. Only calling Terra twice and Aqua three times before when he had gotten lost. He started to use the clock on the cane more, knowing when the group had started lunch or dinner whenever he wasn’t with them. Then using the big button to place the cane on his nightstand. It’s been a while since he’s heard his full name. He liked it. 

They took the final step a month later. Ventus had finally made his move, he admitted something between him and the raven. Vanitas had only scoffed and struck him with his cane. “You haven’t slept in your own bed in months, I think its obvious,” he had said. It was definitely something clowned at the dinning room table up until it was bed time. The top floor of the castle had been forgotten about, the rotting back rooms now nothing more than empty storage rooms filled with ancient memories.  
The boys huddled together, the sun long set and the night stars lighting up the room only Ventus could see. They had gotten used to each other. They had started to love each other more and more. Things were starting to gain their own normality.  
“There was 15 clouds today,” Ventus had told him.  
“That's 3 more than yesterday,”


End file.
